Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. ~ Mark Twain

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. ~ Thomas Jefferson

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. ~ Edmund Burke

To change one’s life, start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions. ~ William James

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change. ~ John A. Simone, Sr.

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one. ~ William H. Seward

Ignorance is no excuse, it’s the real thing. ~ Irene Peter

Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. ~ Glen Beaman

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. ~ Winston Churchill

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. ~ C. S. Lewis

Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed. ~ Irene Peter

We emphasize that we believe in change because we were born of it, we have lived by it, we prospered and grew great by it. So the status quo has never been our god, and we ask no one else to bow down before it. ~ Carl T. Rowan

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. ~ R. D. Laing

People are always telling me that change is good. But all that means is that something you didn’t want to happen has happened. ~ Meg Ryan

Those people in New York are not gonna change me none. ~ Elvis Presley

No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to. ~ Frank Zappa

I am invariably late for appointments – sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing. ~ Marilyn Monroe

If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot? ~ Gloria Steinem

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. ~ Stanislaw Lec

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place. ~ Washington Irving

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. ~ W. Edwards Deming

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less. ~ General Eric Shinseki

Change before you have to. ~ Jack Welch

No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches. ~ Milan Kundera

People can cry much easier than they can change. ~ James A. Baldwin

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change. ~ Jesse Jackson

The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B. ~ James Yorke

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. ~ Flannery O’Connor

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. ~ Charles DuBois

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. ~ William Blake

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better. ~ Ambrose Bierce

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. ~ Eric Hoffer

The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become. ~ W. E. B. Du Bois

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

I am comforted by life’s stability, by earth’s unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. ~ Thomas Hardy

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~ Nelson Mandela

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass. ~ John Steinbeck

About This Site

This site offers a daily column on current events, and unlike other blogs, in long form. Short posts pointing to this and that and saying "Oh my!" seems a bit lazy. Columns here are an attempt to think things through. If you'd like to come along for the ride, fine. If you have neither the time nor patience for that, that is also fine - you can click on the LINKS tab at the top of the page and visit the sites that offer quick hits. Those provide the raw material for the analyses here.

The views here are mine alone, save for the occasional column from Ric in Paris or comments from key readers, like Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, and others.

Commentary and guest columns are posted here, but there is a sister site, Just Above Sunset Photography, where images are far more important than words. That site is updated daily. Take a look.

JUST ABOVE SUNSET has been online, in various formats, since May 2003. Click on the ABOUT tab at the top of the page for more on that, and a note on who I am.